Weekend road trip to Comala

La Manzanilla, Mexico is great, nice beach, warm water, coconut trees…ok so it’s paradise. But Mexico has so many different places to explore. We've decided to take advantage of our life here and travel around the country as much as we can. Last weekend we went to Comala.

We left La Manzanilla at 11:00 a.m. and arrived in the main plaza of Comala at about 2:00. Just in time to sit at one of the restaurants that line the plaza and order a beer, and then enjoy the parade of free food that comes with drink orders. And I don’t mean chips and salsa, I’m talking Ceviche, Taquitos, Taco’s dorado, chicken burritos, fruit…and it kept coming until we had to say, “stop!” This is the normal gig in Comala from 2-6 pm every day. Order and drink and the food is free. Now granted, the beers were 32 pesos ($2.70 USD), we usually pay 18 at the beach, but we were served a heck of a lot of food!

We stayed at a lovely B and B Casa Alvarada. The next day the host of the B and B acted as our tour guide and gave us a “highlights tour” of Comala. We had some great views of the volcano, coffee plantation education, a village specializing in wooden mask making and a marvelous museum which is the ex-hacienda of the famous
Mexican artist Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo

Lyle makes his first phone call and it’s all in Spanish

He has a friend who lives a couple of blocks away and because Lyle’s been a little sick I didn’t want him walking down there. So, Lyle went next door to the boy’s grandma (on his own accord) and asked for the phone number.

He then picks up the phone and makes his call.

The mother answers the phone and they proceed to have a detailed conversation, in Spanish, about why Yeir can’t come over to play, his homework isn’t done. Lyle explains that he has finished his homework and urges her to get Yeir going so he can finish his and come over to play.

It’s the thought that counts---Happy Birthday to Me!

Been in a funk all day because today is my birthday and I’m 43 and not happy about it!

Worked most of the day, canceled my Spanish class because I didn’t have the energy to spend an hour speaking in the past tense!

The afternoon was dragging on when a friend (who is a reflexologist) called and said she would like to give me a treatment for my birthday. What a treat! I think I like reflexology better then massage.

Moving on to dinner- we bought some nice and expensive steaks for dinner. I sauté some spinach, Rick put the steaks on the grill. Unfortunately, the fire got away from him...(see the picture) that’s burnt steak and vegetables. I got a HUGE laugh out it! Funk gone!

He’s in town trying to find a pizza for dinner.

Happy birthday to me 

A quiet moment….and chips

Usually when the kids are playing here in La Manzanilla it’s a herd of them out in the street playing soccer, hide and seek, or war games. The common denominator of any of these games is that they are loud, raucous and wild. Lots of screaming, “da me lo!” translation- “give it to me!” “el me pegó” -translation “he hit me!” Followed shortly by a parent yelling “no, peleando!” translation-“no fighting!”

Imagine my surprise when I looked out the window and witnessed Lyle and Gael sharing a conversation, a quiet moment…and a bag of chips.

A new beach vendor in town!

We’ve been beading and making jewelry as a family for a few months. We made bracelets for grandmas, I received a lovely glass bead bracelet, “just because” and Lyle made some cute little rings that he handed out to his many girl friends.

He’s been talking about wanting to sell his creations at the beach, and today was his first day. He packed up 5 necklaces and 4 bracelets and announced that he was going to sell them at the beach. So, we headed to the beach for lunch and after an hour of playing in the water and enjoying some shrimp quesadilla’s at Quinta Valentine Lyle decided to try his hand at beach vending.

We left the beach with 3 necklaces, 3 bracelets and Lyle had 50 more pesos then when he started! Who knew, Lyle was such a good salesman!